


My Dearest J

by zelda_zee



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Epistolary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 00:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9852926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee
Summary: A letter to one long thought lost.Caveat: I am no expert AT ALL in epistolary styles of the 18th c. If you spot some grievous error please feel free to point it out to me.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for episode 4.04.

St. Augustin  
9 May, 1720

My dearest J,

The shock of receiving this missive will doubtless prove very great, but I can conceive of no way to lessen the blow. I regret that I cannot be there with you as you read these words in a hand that you may, despite the intervening of years, yet recognize. Were I able, I would comfort you and reassure you that I am well and whole and still love you with all my heart. 

It was not until the appearance of Mr. John Silver at the place where I was kept that I learned of your survival. Even as you and Miranda were lied to about my death in Bethlem, so was I misled that you had ended your own life in despair and shame. Miranda, I was told, had abandoned me, although I never believed it of her.

I can hardly tell you of the adventures I have had since Mr. Silver found me, first removing me by force from the camp where I lived (‘twas not such a terrible place, in truth, for a prison), then fleeing through the forests with the guards on our heels. Now we wait upon the tide to set sail, and though I must hide below the deck until we are out of sight of land, the glimpse I had of the sea was the most beautiful sight my eyes have beheld since they last beheld your own.

I am informed that you know nothing of what became of me, that you and our dear Miranda believed me dead for all these many years. Mr. Silver has also recounted to me of your life as a pirate and so many things that I could scarce believe befell you in the years since I last held you in my arms. He told me too of Miranda’s terrible fate and while I grieve for her I grieve equally for you, left to face the world alone without those who knew and loved you best.

Mr. Silver tells me that you waged a war in my name – a war with England! More than any of the rest, this has left me dumbfounded, for I know you, regardless of how you have changed, and I know why you would do such a thing, and the state you would have to have been in to do so, and what a toll it must have taken upon you. I am sorry, my Love, so sorry that our beautiful friendship wrought such pain and destruction upon you and those who stood in your way. I cannot say more of it now, but when we meet again we will talk, and I hope that you will tell me all and hold nothing back as was ever our way, before.

I am told by Mr. Silver (an extraordinary man – I can well see why you chose him as a partner and friend) that the fellow to whom I entrust this letter, a most forbidding and taciturn Oriental, is eminently trustworthy and thus I have not censored my words nor taken refuge in stiff formality. I have faith this message will find you, though I know not where, for Mr. Silver has declined to share your location, being most properly circumspect. He promises to deliver me there, however, within the month and urged me to pen this note to be delivered to you in advance so that you do not, as he puts it, ‘fall down stone dead’ from the shock of finding me alive, and as well as can be expected given the passing of time and the privations of living a decade in the wilderness.

I know I will seem to you to be greatly changed, as I will no doubt find you. But I hope that some spark of what we once had yet remains, that it may help us truly find each other again. If there be not, then we shall at least be able to say we tried, which I believe is the least we owe to the men we once were, as well as to Miranda, who always only wanted us to be happy and loved, and which, for such a brief and glorious time, we were.

I remain, as ever, your devoted

T. H.


End file.
